What the New Year Can Bring
by Halunygin
Summary: Harry is in a bad place due to an unfortunate breakup, and he's falling down a hole. But Neville can help, perhaps in more ways than Harry expected. Slash or friendship, it can be read as either.


**A/N: I recently read a bunch of Harry/Neville fics, and I really liked the ship, and I wanted to write something with them, so I wrote this. Sort of for this New Years Resolution challenge, but I combined two of the prompts and at the same time, don't feel like I used either of them to the extent necessary, so I don't know if it counts, and I don't care.**

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The light knocking on the door is amplified by a hundred, and Harry groans from where he assumes he was unceremoniously dumped. The old couch groans under his weight as he shifts to bury his face in the cushions, because the sunlight burns through his closed, yet exposed eyelids, and tosses the blanket (who put that there anyway?) over his head. The knocking continues, even louder now, and it's only when a familiar voice yells, also at a inhumanly loud volume, "Harry, open the door," that he forces himself to stand and wrap the blanket around him like a shawl to greet the visitor.

He doesn't have his glasses on, which would normally be a pressing concern, but he's grateful for it, because then he can pretend that Neville isn't giving him a look. He can't, however, ignore the sigh that escapes the man, nor could Harry blame him. He knew he had to look a right mess. He certainly _felt_ a right mess, his head was throbbing for every second he was upright, and he musters up a hoarse, "come in," before going back to the wilting couch and collapsing onto it, rather dramatically, perhaps, but when one is seriously hungover, one tends not to care about the dramatics of their actions.

He opens his eyes when he feels a glass tap gently against his nose, and while his head screams against it, he sits up and accepts the glass of water, sipping the cool liquid gratefully. Neville pushes his glasses back onto his face, but Harry keeps his eyes closed, because he doesn't want to have the conversation Neville is undoubtedly going to start.

"What happened?"

His voice is gentle, but it's fraught with underlying disappointment, enough to make Harry's already aching chest burn. It was fairly easy to disappoint Hermione, he just had to exist, but you had to really fuck up to make Neville put on that voice.

"Harry, look at me."

Harry opens his eyes and turns himself to face the other occupant of the couch, but he looks stubbornly at the space beside Neville's head. "I don't want a lecture, my head hurts too much," he murmurs in a clearer voice than before, but still cracking in places.

"Too bad," Neville says, crossing his arms. "You promised me you wouldn't drink more than a glass or two. So I ask again, what happened?"

Harry bites back a retort about how New Year's Eve is a holiday meant for binge drinking, and combs through the fog that is his brain at the moment, trying to pinpoint when everything had fallen apart. He had been fine up until five minutes before the countdown, only one firewhiskey total under his belt, when it happened.

His breakup with Ginny was two months ago, so her presence at all had made his stomach churn, albeit his stomach had barely anything other than alcohol in it. He had been too nervous about seeing her at the party to eat properly that day. Then it got worse.

There should be a rule about not bringing a date to a social gathering when you know your ex is going to be there for at least five months after said breakup. The opportunity to hurt people was too tempting. Not that Harry thought Ginny was trying to hurt him, but damn, she really had. Draco Malfoy? Anyone else, he could handle. The worst part was that no one thought Malfoy looked out of place, though perhaps everyone else was too drunk to notice.

But they were kissing and giggling and generally being too disgusting, so Harry downed another firewhiskey, and then another, and then his memory had hit a wall.

"Ginny and Malfoy were being indecent, the usual," he replies shortly before asking a question of his own. "Do you remember how I got home? You didn't take me, otherwise you would have stayed."

Neville flushes at this, though Harry doesn't know why. If anyone was going to be embarrassed, it would be him, The Boy Who Lived. The boy who lived to become such a loser he needed a babysitter.

"I left a little after midnight," he replies. "I don't fancy being around our friends when they get sloshed and start screaming incoherently, you know?"

The shame burns Harry more, because Neville's been sticking by him like glue since the breakup, through every unfortunate bit of Harry falling apart, which came with a lot of alcohol intake. Harry could call Neville at any time, and he'd be there with sobering potions and an ear to lend. And all he had asked of Harry was that he tone down the drinking for one night, because the latter hadn't seen much of Ron and Hermione since the breakup, and Neville insisted that he be of clear mind when the time came.

"But actually yeah, I did come back to take you home, I just-" Neville pauses. "I couldn't stay."

There's a pained look in his eyes, the same look he tries to conceal whenever Harry is venting about Ginny and his heartbreak. The look that he thinks Harry doesn't notice, and for the most part, he's right. Harry just never thinks much on it, always being too wrapped up in himself (and being too sloshed). Even now, his raging hangover clouds his judgement, and he finds himself angry.

"Finally had it with me, have you?" he says bitterly. "Couldn't stand to be under the same roof as me any longer than you had to?"

Neville widens his eyes. "What? Harry, that's not-"

"I don't blame you, everyone I love leaves me, so it was only a matter of time before you came to your senses as well."

Neville flushes at the word love and tries to speak again. "Harry, I didn't-"

"Well, I'm fine and I don't need you or anyone else, so you can go, I don't know why you bothered to come check on me in the first place!" Harry finishes his rant with a gasp, because he has tears running down his face, and he's already embarrassed himself enough for the morning. He wraps the blanket tightly around himself and buries his head in his knees, waiting for Neville to get up and go. Leave him to wallow in his depression alone. He doesn't expect his glasses being taken off and the arm going around his shoulders to pull him close.

"There is no way I'd ever leave you," Neville says softly. "No matter what."

His words are so sincere and genuine, and heavy with feeling, so Harry actually starts crying into Neville's torso like a child. He's just such a wreck, and he doesn't know how to fix it. The sobbing is cathartic, and in the back of his still throbbing head (why had Neville not brought him a hangover potion?), he has a suspicion Neville isn't just being a good friend. But now isn't the time to dwell on it, he has a whole year ahead of him to do so. Everything still hurts, and it would hurt tomorrow, and the next day, and probably next week. But as a certain Herbology professor cards his fingers through Harry's hair and murmurs calming words, he can't help but look to the New Year with a level of optimism he didn't think he was capable of anymore.


End file.
